The "Block Schedule" System - LIFE CHANGING productivity hack!

Hello Freebs Page Jordan from Funer Free.com and Productivity Bootcamp.com, you're excited here because today I'm going to delve into a principle that I've been teaching and hinting at for months and you all have been begging for depth. Today we are talking about

block

schedule

s. Yes, many of you know me for my frugal living and budgeting expertise, which is what most of my TV segments and blog posts have been about over the years. Well, what you may not know is that I'm also a bit of a

productivity

ninja, let's say for years. I've been perfecting and perfecting the art of doing a lot of things in a short period of time without killing myself about it and still finding time for downtime and all those things you want to do. more in your

life

and I never have time for it, as a busy mother with five children and another on the way, various businesses, church

life

extracurricular activities, all things marriage related, it can be busy so I have really had to rely on

productivity

to achieve this. all done this spring i launched my own productivity program it's called productivity boot camp use the code youtube to get 10% off.

I promise you will love this is what I am going to do for you today. I'll give you a sneak peek at one of the most popular and most useful viral principles in the entire program. I'm going to give you a small sample so you can try it yourself and see if you love it. I call it a

block

programming

system

and it's It's going to blow your mind, we should jump into it, let's do it. One of the things that I feel like I hear a lot and that I hear myself say a lot is that I'm too busy or I'm too busy to do anything.

It's whether I'm too busy to keep my house clean or I don't have time to exercise or I would love to do that but I'm too busy I never have time. I would actually like to question that because you Oprah Kim Cardashian Everyone who has ever lived, even Einstein himself, has had exactly the same amount of time in their day, which is 24 hours. So what makes one person busier, more productive, or less productive than another if we all have the exact same 24 hours? In our days, it all comes down to choice, it all comes down to how we use those 24 hours now, if you're like me and what I was like years ago, with new babies and new businesses, and my husband worked a lot and traveled a lot. a lot and just trying to figure out life as an adult, which isn't easy, you might feel a little overwhelmed and like a duck, maybe because you're always treading water.

I started doing something years ago that completely changed my productivity, right? I stopped living my life hour by hour and instead started living it block by block, are you interested? It's cool, so in high school or college or whatever, we did so many things, how can we do that? The secret blocks, let me explain. Let's take high school for example, your alarm goes off in the morning, you wake up, you have a certain amount of time before you have to get dressed ready and head out the door to whatever, let's say your first class of the day. at school, so you have that block of time in the morning to do everything you need to do before you get to school, then you go to school and you're sitting in your first class.

The bell rings, you sit down, let's say it's science, you take out your science book. You're focused on science, you're taking science notes, you're working on your science papers, you're learning all about the scientific periodical stuff that I clearly didn't learn very well in high school and then the bell brings time to change classes. You take that science book, you take your science brain, you turn it off, you put the book in your backpack, you get up and you physically move to the next block or class, which let's say is math, and while you're in math you're concentrating on math you're doing. your math homework you have your calculator out your math book out you're not thinking about science you're not doing your English paper that comes out in 2 hours you're completely into math or you should be and those days you're not there and you're struggling to keep up caught up with other classes, you realize you're drowning, you keep doing that all day and then Bell Rings school ends and you move on to the next thing you're headed to. let's say soccer practice you have a couple hours of soccer practice where again you're in soccer you're not doing science you're not preparing for the day you're not doing math you're totally into soccer the soccer ends You're heading home from new Do you see the pattern?

At the end of the night you go to bed and start again the next day. When we are young, that

schedule

is imposed on us because we have things that dictate that schedule, like a job, a class, or extracurricular activities. activities and then we magically become adults overnight and suddenly, for the most part, we are in charge of our own schedule, we decide what time we get up, what job we take and what time that job is, where we live , what we do with our free time. It's all up to us and sure we may have a job or a full-time job that dictates our schedule for the most part, but outside of that, no one really tells us what to do and we have a lot of decisions to make to feel more productive. and to be more productive, get more done, and most importantly, have a lot more time for downtime and the fun things in life, I might suggest that instead of taking our lives hour by hour, we reschedule them accordingly. of blocks, so for me instead of waking up and taking my life 1 hour at a time, I have divided my day for the most part into 3 hour blocks, so my first block starts when I wake up and my alarm goes off. 6:30 in the morning. so it goes from 6:30 to 9:30 and that's what I call my morning block.

In this block I write everything I basically need to do before I leave the house in the morning, here are some of the things. That includes so obviously it includes awakening. I tried to say a prayer first thing in the morning and start centering myself. I try to make my bed as soon as my feet hit the floor, so it's done and dunon, this is when I get my scripture reading this is when I get dressed and I try to do all that before I go down to breakfast, so This morning block is when the kids eat, we make them a hot breakfast and then I have to prepare it. a point to also eat while hungry and hungry, we all know how that goes.

I'm getting my kids ready for school or I'm walking out the door, whatever we're doing that day, this is when we like to read scriptures as a family, uh, over breakfast. This is also when I discovered that it works best to work on spelling words with my kids because after school their brains are fried. I clean breakfast, unload the dishwasher from the night before, or have my kids unload it. I hate that job. To be honest, this is also when I try to rotate at least one load of laundry before I leave that day. It's also when I think about dinner or taking out meat to defrost or turning on the crock pot and one of the things I've had to do. starting to program or write on my blocks is my time to connect or, in this case, disconnect from my phone.

I am a recovering phone addict. It's been a big challenge for me over the years, especially with social media and having an online life. I waste hours on my phone so with my blocks I really had to schedule the blocks where phone time is appropriate and the blocks where it just isn't, think about high school if you're in the middle of science class or in the middle of a soccer match. practice, you're not playing on your phone, but if you're at home having free time, if you're with friends, if you have time between classes, it's obviously quite appropriate, so you just have to decide for yourself in your own blocks when the time screen time is good, schedule it so you don't fall into the hole like Mama Jay does and waste hours at a time and lastly what I had to schedule in my morning block is that I don't work during this block, if I open my computer or open my emails, I get lost for hours, so I allow myself to do an Instagram post in the morning, otherwise all my screens disappear until my work block later in the day, so 9 rolls around: 30. and for me I have a real alarm that goes off on my phone.

I ring it 15 minutes early and then again at 9:30 to remind me that, just like in high school, this block is over, put your books in your backpacks, kids. We're moving forward so anything I didn't do in my morning block is totally fine, but that block is already done, now it's time for the next one, which I call my exit block, obviously you can make your own blocks that work with your schedule for me. Being a housewife, this is my block where, if I have something to do outside the house, this is when I have to do it, this is when I go grocery shopping, run to the store or run an errand, this is when I exercise and little physical education next to exercise, I put it as a reminder that I am perfectly fine to stay connected while exercising.

I can listen to podcasts on my phone. I can watch YouTube videos while I exercise. on the elliptical machine, maybe during this excursion I take my kids to a play date or a park or somewhere outside for me being LDS. This is when I would hire a babysitter or switch babysitting with someone and go visit the temp and do some volunteer work there. If I have some type of appointment, like nails or a haircut, something like that needs to be done during this block and again I find a babysitter or switch childcare with another mom, this is also when I would schedule things for my kids, like an appointment with the doctor or a dentist appointment for my kids who are at home anyway for my kids who are at school In fact, I will take them out of school for an hour to go to an appointment, like a doctor's appointment or the dentist after school, he's crazy about extracurricular activities, okay.

You can be gone for an hour, you're going to survive, okay guys, don't call me at DCFS. I swear I'm a good mother. This is also my time where I would make sure to go visit someone, so if there is a friend. I haven't seen him in a while or if there is a neighbor that I need to bring a meal to, this would be a great block to do it and then the last thing I always make sure to get done during this block is lunch to prepare and eat. and I cleaned it before the block was done because again, when that literal bell or alarm goes off on my phone, it's time to save that block so that whatever hasn't been done we can do it tomorrow, it's time to move on to the next one. class or block, which for me is the nap block, my favorite.

I have a 2 year old at home who is still napping and then a baby on the way, so I'm in the toddler zone for me. I have almost always had at least one child. that's taking a nap knowing this is partly why I organize the rest of my day the way I do my exit block has to be before naps because let me tell you which naps are sacred in my house so this block of The middle of the day while my baby is napping is my time. I put my kids down for a nap or the kids who don't nap have a quiet time at the beginning of this block.

I'll give myself some time to do a quick cleanup. I'll set a timer on my phone. I'll do it for maybe 5 to 15 minutes, but not too long because then I'll give up on the rest of the other things I need to do in this block. This block is more important to me for two reasons, number one some days. especially when the pregnant mom needs to rest, so when my kids take a nap or quiet time, sometimes I have a nap time or quiet time too; Otherwise, when I don't need to rest, this is my work time, I will leave the mess you didn't make.

I don't finish during my quick clean. I do as much work as I can as fast as I can on my computer because my other kids are napping or resting at the end of my block. I take the last five or 10 minutes to clean up what I do. I'm making and then getting ready for an after school snack because wouldn't you know the next block is the busiest block of the day? I'm already sweating thinking about it, it's crazy, it gets really crazy. Well, the block after school, anyone else? I feel the heat after school, we call it the witching hours in our house because everyone comes home from school busy, grumpy and hungry, and it's full-blown chaos in the page house, so in this block I have to save my screens, save my projects, everything that wasn't done in the previous blocks is ignored for now and I am totally involved in the kids' extracurricular activities, dinner and after school is absolute chaos.

I make sure to give my kids a snack. I wake up my napping kids and make sure they don't sleep too much.late because I need them to go to bed at a reasonable time. This is where we move and I live in my car and we go to extracurricular activities and practice in all these other places. This is also the block to work on homework if it's a less busy day, we love doing homework at home sitting all nice and tidy, but the reality is that most of the time it's on clipboards in the back of the car while We run everywhere. where my kids who are not in an activity are at home finishing their clipboards, see my link below, but that's when my kids do their homework, this is when we go to sports games, practices, lessons and all that, this is also when to prepare food and clean up dinner and then of course, as I mentioned before, I have to try really hard to completely ignore my phone, all my screens, and any work I haven't done because if I do, I fall into the hole and everyone is late everywhere and goes to bed hungry and it's just not nice it's just not nice we're finally home the activities are mostly done homework is done housework is done dinner is clean now is our bedtime block during this block is basically when everything related to bedtime happens, all my kids take a shower and while they are in the shower, in the bathtub, I am running around doing a quick cleanup around the house , so I will clean the bathrooms very very quickly.

I will help pick up things that are messy and crazy and that were scattered everywhere throughout the day. I will clean mirrors and sinks. I'll basically do a quick cleanup while chasing the kids inside. to bed and then this is also when my kids pack their backpacks, put their homework in their folders, and pack their lunches for the next day. We have to make sure we do it before they go to bed or else the next morning it gets too crazy and they end up running out the door without lunch, which is not good and then my favorite part of the routine Before bed is when we all pile up together in a bed, read a book or the big kids climb on the top bunk and read. they bundle themselves up on time, I have a video on tucking in on time, be sure to click the link in the description box below and I'll tell you all about it while I close the door, say goodnight to the kids and mom is on the clock.

I basically give myself until 9:00 to do anything else that needs to be done around the house. This is usually when I mop the floors or wipe down the counters and do a little more deep cleaning that I didn't do. finish the day I will continue to rotate clothes I will do whatever is on my cleaning schedule that day I will prepare dinner for the next day whatever it may be, but then when the alarm goes off at 900 p.m. on my phone mom is done, I'm done, I'm clocking out, hit me with a fork, don't ask me anything, mom is done, it's done, that's it, and then the rest of the night is my block, this is my night block while I call.

Sometimes I'm so exhausted I'll just sit and watch a show, maybe fold laundry next to Bubba while we do it, but during this block is also when Bubba and I get ready for bed together, so there were a couple After years our marriage became very difficult. I felt like we were more roommates and friends than married. We had to go to therapy. We really had to work on reconnecting and figuring out this marriage thing together. I am ideal. He is an early riser. We were going. We went to bed at two totally different times and we didn't realize what we were missing by not spending that quality time together because even if we were sitting on the couch watching a show or working together on our computers or whatever, it's not connective.

The moment we don't connect, we don't bond, we don't talk about important topics, we don't discuss parenting strategies, life goals, budgets or all the important things, we just coexist on this block, we choose a time for ourselves, so general. around 10: or 10:30 the alarm goes off on both phones we stop what we're doing we completely zone out we go upstairs I have to physically plug in my phone and put it in the top drawer of my nightstand so it's not a temptation and we get ready to go to bed together, it's amazing the difference that has happened in our marriage when we started doing this, it's a really beautiful moment, so I recommend a couple of things in this block, please, if you can, If you are in a position to be able to do this, prepare to go to bed with your spouse, disconnect from electronic devices and that includes not having a TV in your room, when you remove media from the room, magic happens, including Last thing on my list, that's getting on my nerves.

I promise you'll get more action if you save the screens at the end of the night. I'm just saying men listen, I'm going to throw that out there, you know it's true. I always try to pack my gym bag for the next day or prepare my clothes for the next day and then also Bubba and I always try to read an article together or the scriptures together we do something together we pray together we also use this as a time to look your calendar and schedule for the next day Make sure you have everything prepared and ready to conquer your blocks the next day, so the last set of blocks is equally important even if they are blank and even if there is not much to do, you will notice that sleep blocked No I know about you, but for you years and years and years I always told myself I'm a night owl I don't need much sleep I can function on so little sleep and I'd still go to bed feeling guilty at the end of the night because I was grumpy with my kids and barking at the lady in the store and just impatient and exhausted and never had enough energy to do anything and H.

I wonder why so please block the dream for yourself and respect. It's because honey you need it, you need to sleep, go, in fact, go take a nap right now, just go, we'll talk later. I'm sure this has raised a lot of questions, so let me answer a couple of them real quick. in mind and please remember that that is just an example of my schedule. I have small children. I have many. I am a working, stay-at-home mother who is married. You may be the complete opposite and that's okay. Here are a couple of ways to make this work for you, number one.

Yes, your schedule probably won't be exactly the same every day, but you know what mine isn't either, or sometimes we say "oh, but my schedule is very different every day." Well, let's back up, actually, usually our schedules are pretty similar every day, but the tasks we need to do and the things that come up change day to day, so this is what I recommend doing, let's say I don't need to go to the supermarket. shop one day, obviously I'm not going to block it out and go to the grocery store 7 days a week, just give yourself blocks of time, give them a name, I know where things go so that when something comes up like, oh, my friend wants to meet up, oh , I need to run to the post office block, these come in so that your schedule, your routine, your alarms, your calendar basically stays the same and you just plug the different tasks that you need to do into the appropriate blocks, if that allows you Okay, And what if your schedule isn't as flexible as mine?

What if let's say you work full time or are in school full time? Beautiful, you are actually very lucky because you already have a framework in place for Will you let me do this? How about I give you an example? I'm going to pretend that there is a woman named Jill who works full time outside the home and let's say that Jill has two teenagers with very busy schedules now, of course, they all are. It's going to be different, but let me show you maybe an example of how Jill could program the blocks of her. If you look at these blocks, Jill, like me, starts with pretty standard three-hour blocks, you have a morning block, a morning work block. a lunch block that is only 1 hour and is fine a night work block that is 4 hours and is fine make it work for you a dinner block an evening block and then of course a sleep block if You notice that she really focuses on the morning as with for most of us, the morning is the most productive time of the day, it's when we are most refreshed, it's when people demand the least from us outside the home, so really focus on that morning block and, like Jill, she gets a lot of the time.

Things that she needs to do during the day and that she can't do with her teenagers busy at home or at work, she squeezes in and does in the morning, when she is most productive and has more freedom. time for herself, so for her that's waking up making her bed, maybe that's when she works out and maybe she doesn't have time to drive to the gym and do an hour of class, but maybe she watches an exercise video on YouTube or run around. the block for 15 minutes, so for Jill her life is very busy and she has teenagers monopolizing many of her afternoons and her husband maybe works late or works a totally different shift than her, so let's say Jill uses that block in the morning as a time for her and her husband to connect maybe they work out together maybe she wakes up early when he's getting ready for work or whatever and they have breakfast together maybe they take a shower together and that's when their alone time is whatever you find what you need and find the block that makes the most sense and then of course you know she's having breakfast, cleaning up breakfast, maybe it's here when she's doing laundry or cleaning the house, this It's when you put food in the crock pot for dinner or order food to pick up on the way home from work and then one of the things Jill could do is while she's commuting to work maybe this is her time to focus, she's listening to audiobooks in the car maybe it's when she calls and catching up with Aunt Sue or Grandma or her best friend, she's using the time commuting and even from work to get things done and not waste a minute, I'm sure once you're at work your schedule is dictated for the most part, but one of the things What Jill would do is very smart because she considers what makes sense at the beginning of the day before lunch.

Her brain is the sharpest, so she keeps her work tasks and organizes what she needs to do so that before lunch she can accomplish the most difficult thing. work tasks for the day and she does as much as she can sitting at her desk because she has energy, she's not going to fall asleep in front of her computer, she can do them at lunch time, she has an hour, let's say, for lunch, so in Instead of sitting in the break room or whatever, maybe that's when you run and run an errand to the post office, maybe you rush to Target while eating in the car to return that pair of shoes, maybe That's when you're checking Facebook or catching up on personal business. emails or making that photo book for dad's birthday that she's been wanting to do for so long that she uses lunchtime as her personal time to do some things after lunch we're all a little slow so that's when she did the work. that requires the least amount of effort and energy, but also the work that gets her up and moving around the office and away from her desk because I think we've all been there when we're trying to work on something over a meal. get organized about that too, she comes home and during her dinner block, which is her family time, her teenagers run in and out, maybe she's driving them to activities or supporting them in their activities, making dinner, cleaning the dinner, catching up on your family's day. time and then when your teenagers are out with their friends or in their different activities, that is their home block, their night block, their central block to make their house and prepare meals or lunches for the next day, that is when maybe he relaxes and prepares. to go to bed, even if her kids aren't home yet, maybe that's when she has time with her spouse, whatever it may be, if you work full time, if you have teenagers, if you don't have kids, whatever whatever, it doesn't have them.

It doesn't matter, you can customize it just like Jill would to work for her, but of course, no matter what, don't forget to block sleep so you get enough sleep. Here's how the blocks work and maybe even some ideas on how they work. may work for you, here are some quick tips for success that you can try to take to the next level of success if your schedule is different from day to day, like maybe you only work on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then you're home. the other days or maybe you're in school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, whatever, it's okay, try to keep a block schedule for the most part, but if you have to, you can, like in high school, have a schedule A B, so maybe you have two. block schedules: you have a block schedule for the days you are at work or school and a block schedule for the days you are at home, that's totally fine, but don't make a different block schedulefor every day of the week, I promise it won't work.

Also remember that one hour blocks are what we're trying to avoid from time to time, they happen like commute time, lunch time, things like that, but otherwise for the most part I try to stay within the range from 2 to 4 hours. Don't make your blocks too long because you need that boost to get things done before the bell rings, but don't keep them too short either because then it won't be realistic and you'll burn out and never feel like you're right. To maintain my personal sweet spot is about 3 hours, sometimes two and a half, you do what works for you.

Another tip is to set timers and alarms. I can't stress this enough, so like I said, I have an alarm that goes off 15 minutes early. The block ends and then again when the block ends, I set the timer and respect it as much as I did when the bell rang in high school and it was time to move on to the next class. Timers are also useful for keeping you moving quickly, so maybe you say, okay, this is my cleaning block. I'm going to set my timer for 15 minutes and do my best. My last tip for this video anyway is to make sure you schedule U-time, downtime, and fun time, okay because the real purpose of productivity is to go to bed at the end of the night feeling satisfied. , not feeling like you didn't do enough, not trying to do everything you can, but simplifying and organizing yourself so you can have more. time for the things that mean the most to you was drinking through a fire hose or what I promise you, if you try this locking

system

it will make a positive difference in your life, it will take a little customization and you know what which may be necessary.

A little more help note that we have a much more detailed version of this concept and hundreds of others in my productivity program. This was just a quick overview to give you a general idea and something you can try if you want more help getting your life organized and finding more time to be productive and do the things you want to do please check out my super super fun productivity program and otherwise I hope you like this video Have you tried the block system? Are you going to try it? Let me know in the comment below and be sure to subscribe because I'm increasing the videos guys I'm back.

Summer productivity is also picking up on my end, so I'll be uploading new videos every Thursday. Turn on those notification signals and don't miss out. Do not care. This block is over. I'm out. The peace spell went wrong later. CH. Check oh who's here? Go away.